Friday, May 13, 2011

Well hello there !

Hello new readers !

If you are one of the people who found this blog via my SELECTIVE status update on facebook, then welcome ! If this is the first blog you have ever looked at, then pull up a chair and sit down because you are in for a fun ride.

I started blogging regularly back in February of 2008. Several of my IRL (in real life) friends blogged, I read several other parenting focused blogs, and it seemed like a nice way to create an on-line memoir of parenting my young children. I knew from the start that I didn't want to tell everyone I knew about it. I didn't necessarily want a cousin or a neighbor to know what was inside my head. It did, and still does, feel safer to have 95% of my readers not know me IRL.

Over the years, I read more blogs and made more on-line friends. Contrary to what some people might think, it doesn't take up a lot of extra time. When other people watch tv at night, I blog or read. When other people do their other hobbies, I blog.

Over time, it has evolved into less of a recounting of funny stories about my husband or children, and more to be a reflection of what I'm thinking about at any given time. To that end, I created pseudonyms for us. I go by Thrift Store Mama, or Mrs. Quimby. My husband is obviously Mr. Quimby. Our oldest daughter (now 5 3/4 years old) is Beezus and our younger daughter (3 3/4 years old) is Ramona. I also use pseudonyms for the three women in my neighborhood who occasionally appear. (June, A., and A., hmmm, that could be confusing since A. and A. are different people). The friends from my mother's group are identified by their first initials or if they are bloggers, by their first names. Family are usually identified by their relationship or names.

I love the writing and I love reading other blogs. I love that I can have a connection with someone far away.By sharing it with you, I hope to challenge myself to post more regularly, on a wider variety of topics, and to write better. So maybe we spoke last week or maybe we haven't spoken in 20 years, but as I thought about the people I wanted to share it with, you were on the list. I trust you to read with an open mind, to not judge me, and most of all, not to tell anybody else that I know in real life about this !(but please share it with other people who don't know me !) What I have to say isn't always nice, or uplifting, and it certainly doesn't always cast me in a good light.But it is most definitely honest.Most of my family doesn't know and NONE of my neighbors or neighborhood friends know (except 3).

Over on the right hand side of the page you'll see a list of the other blogs that I read regularly. Check them out - you are sure to find something you like.

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